WOODSTOCK — For those looking for a great beach read filled with love, betrayal and friendship all illuminated by a historic hurricane, “A Hundred Summers” by New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams is making the list.

The author will be at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. for a book signing of the just released trade paperback edition.

The book is set around Memorial Day 1938 when the great New England hurricane of 1938 rocketed up the Atlantic seaboard at 60 miles an hour, packing winds of up to a 150 miles an hour.

In the novel, New York socialite Lily Dane has just returned with her family to the idyllic oceanfront community of Seaview, R.I., “expecting another placid summer season among the familiar traditions and friendships that sustained her after heartbreak,” the book’s description reads.

Then her former fiancé and best friend, now married, arrive on the scene, the book reveals.

“Budgie’s arrival to restore her family’s old house puts her once more in the center of the community’s social scene, and she insinuates herself back into Lily’s friendship with an overpowering talent for seduction…and an alluring acquaintance from their college days, Yankees pitcher Graham Pendleton,” said the book description.

Williams researched the hurricane extensively for the book, she said.

“I was lucky enough to sit down with Robert Utter, owner of the wonderful Other Tiger Bookstore in Westerly, R.I., whose family owned the local newspaper for many years,” she said in a release. “He shared with me his archive of photographs, news clippings, books, and rare film footage of the Westerly-Watch Hill area before and after the 1938 hurricane, and was kind enough to let me pick through and reproduce a few of them.”

The photographs and more about the award-winning and highly acclaimed book can be seen on the author’s website at beatrizwilliams.com.

FoxTale Book Shoppe is at 105 East Main St., No. 138, in Woodstock. For information call (770) 516-9989 or visit foxtalebookshoppe.com.

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